


until you get here

by absolutestyles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (Does love exist?), Alternate Universe, Love at First Sight, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4737671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolutestyles/pseuds/absolutestyles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a story where zayn is (always) artistic and harry is (always) poetic-<br/>a story where love doesn't exist and neither do they.<br/>(until it does and they do and nothing makes sense anymore)</p><p>"you were created to be loved."</p>
            </blockquote>





	until you get here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrophes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrophes/gifts).



> for the prompt (from the lovely astrophes): 'i found you sleeping on my balcony when i went out to water my plants why are you here and more importantly how did you get here we’re eighteen floors up’ au
> 
> to clear up any confusion before it's brought up: this is set over the course of a few months not just a few days, as it may seem.  
> super huge apologies if this is rushed/boring – while I had a difficult time writing it, I did enjoy myself a bit, so I could only hope that u do, too. :-)

“ _You were created to be loved.”  
  
_

_Zayn listens. He listens but he doesn't respond. He can never respond.  
  
_

“ _Every inch of you,” the words hit his skin in soft intervals, “was created to be loved.”_  
  


_Zayn hears him._ Feels _him.  
  
  
His tongue meets Zayn's neck. He shivers against it. “But you'll never let me, will you?”  
  
_

_His lips move against Zayn's skin and he can't find it in him to breathe.  
  
_

“ _You'll never let me love you.”  
  
_

\----

Here's the thing: Zayn's a realist. His mum used to call him cynical, back when he lived at home and still had a (sort of) relationship with his family, and she would tell him that he better let that go before he got out into the real world. _It's only going to get you hurt_. But Zayn _is_ out in the real world. Sure, he hasn't a proper job, and, sure, he spends his days freelancing and his nights blurring the world around him, but it's still all very real. He knows what he needs to know. He knows that humans are selfish by nature. He knows that fate is a four lettered word that only exists in fairytales and in the minds of hopeless romantics who believe in destiny and (this makes Zayn shudder) that everything happens for a reason.  


Life is just a thing, Zayn knows. You are born. You live. And then you die.  
  


Things happen merely because they do. There is no other reason.  
  


So Zayn laughs at things like true love ( _I can't understand the way that you make me feel_ ) and heartbreak ( _please don't let me go_ ) because it's all so artificial. _It is.  
  
_

_\- - -_

_I. FINDING  
_

“You're late.”  


Zayn nearly jumps out of his skin, cigarette falling from between his index and middle finger. Big blue eyes, crinkled at the sides, meet his own as soon as he turns around, an irritating grin pulling the lips of the boy whose hands shook his shoulders.  
  


“Fuckin' hell, Niall,” Zayn huffs, leaning over to pick up the cigarette. “You just gave me a heart attack.”  
  


Niall throws his head backs, laughs like it's funny, and claps Zayn on the shoulder. The cigarette falls again. “You're lucky you're my mate before you're my employee. If that jawline and perfectly symmetrical face wasn't my best mate, you'd been fired a long time ago.”  
  


Zayn rolls his eyes, presses the toe of his boot against his cigarette, and snorts. “Technically, I'm your dad's employee.”  
  


“I don't see him anywhere,” Niall looks around, holding the door open for Zayn but letting it go as soon as he reaches it, “In fact, he ain't even in the country, last time I checked. I'm your boss and this is my business, you hear?”  
  


Zayn walks around the counter, leaning over it as soon as he finds his place. He rolls his eyes again. “Okay, but I'm practically making minimum wage. This job isn't gonna make or break me, mate.”  
  


Nialls slams a glass on the bar, leaning over across from Zayn with a grin. “You're making more than that, wanker. And let's not forget who got you this job, yeah? And the apartment I found you, for the record, that you're paying half of what the others are.”  
  


Niall's right, in retrospect, and Zayn knows this. If it hadn't been for Niall, two years ago when he found himself stepping into New York with no direction, Zayn isn't really sure where he would be. Alone, for sure. Homeless? Dead, maybe. It's almost painful to admit it, but Zayn's surviving off of Niall's wealth. Well, the Horan's wealth. He isn't really sure what Niall's father actually does, or how his mum manages to get up and move every time the business moves, but he's got one solid place in the heart of Brooklyn that he handed down to Niall after graduation. A hole in the wall bar, smacked in the middle of Williamsburg, called nothing more clever than _DRINK!  
  
_

“You're right, mate,” Zayn reaches for a bottle, filling Niall's glass to the very top. Jim Beam. He pushes it toward him. “It's on the house."  
  


Niall laughs so loud Zayn swears the bar shakes.  


\- - -  
  


He wakes slowly. His brain before his body. It's still dark. Zayn notices this once his lids start to flutter before opening quickly. He jumps up, hand over heart, and looks around his apartment. He doesn't remember much. Just that Niall's Jim Beam started to become his own and he doesn't recall leaving _DRINK!_ at all and definitely doesn't remember how he had gotten home. But there's one thing he does remember.  
  


In a rush, he trips over a blank canvas lying beside his makeshift bed, and swears loudly before reaching for his can. He forgot to water his plants this morning. _That's_ what matters most to him. He doesn't care that it's autumn now, and that his other plants will probably fall apart, because he's got new Dahlia's that survive specifically in the cold and he can't be the one to let them die. It's what matters to him. He spent a good portion of his tips from _DRINK!_ prepping for their arrival. The lady he'd purchased from told him it'd be quite difficult to plant potted Dahlia's. But he shrugged her off. He didn't care. He'd spent an entire evening painting what he knows the Dahlia's will become. He knows they will be beautiful – if he doesn't forget to fucking care for them.  
  


Zayn slides his balcony door open and the can falls from his hands. The air is cold against his skin but all Zayn can focus on is the boy who jumped fifteen feet in the air at the sound of the metal against the concrete of the balcony. His eyes, the size of two full moons, is the first thing that Zayn notices. He notices how incredibly green they are-- even in the darkness of the night (morning?).  
  


“I've got a metal bat just behind these doors,” is the first thing that Zayn says.  
  


The boy's hands raise in defense. “Wait- wait. Let me explain.”  
  


Zayn raises his eyebrows.  
  


“I... was sleeping.”  
  


“ _Yeah_ ,” Zayn breathes out. “I've gathered that much. But- what the fuck? I don't even- who _are_ you?”  
  


“Harry,” His bottom lip finds a home between his teeth. Zayn stares a little too long. “My name's Harry.”  
  


“Okay,” Zayn nods, then shakes his head when reality catches up with him once again. “No- not okay. What the _fuck_?”  
  


“I wasn't going to break in or steal anything, promise,” The boy – Harry – nods, wide eyed. “I just- I haven't slept in almost seventy-two hours. It seemed safer up here than down there.”  
  


Zayn believes him when he says he hadn't plans to steal anything. There isn't much to steal.  
  


“I'm just- I'm so confused,” Zayn looks past Harry, over his shoulder where the entire city is asleep, and shakes his head. “We're eighteen floors up. I can't understand how you got up here.”  
  


Harry glances back, too, and when he turns again, there's a soft hint of a smile pulling his lips. Zayn pretends that it doesn't shake him. “If you look over this balcony here, there's a ladder attached to the brick. All the way from the bottom.”  
  


“I thought that was for decoration,” Zayn motions to the floral décor around every other step.  
  


“Maybe,” Harry shrugs as his eyes light up in realization. “But it got me here, yeah?”  
  


“Yeah...” Zayn shakes his head. In awe, maybe. “That brings me to my next thing. Why?”  
  


“I could tell you the real story,” Harry nods with big eyes. “The one with all of the personal, internal conflict. The downs to living with somebody who suddenly doesn't want you there anymore and left you stranded without your heart and sense of well being. _Or,_ I can give you a bit of a bedtime story, yeah? Superhero fighting crime, saving the world, climbing eighteen floors on an unsteady, potentially life threatening ladder.”  
  


Zayn tries to respond. Tries to ignore the way his heart _flutters_ with every word that leaves Harry's lips. Tries to make sense of anything. But nothing comes up.  
  


Harry bites his lip and that hint of humor falters. He blinks slowly. Lets out a sigh so soft that Zayn can't understand why he feels it crawl up his skin. “Your plants are the only ones alive out of every single balcony on this building.”  
  


Zayn looks around. It's so dark out that he can barely see past Harry's painfully emerald eyes. His plants _are_ the only ones alive because he's the only one who cares. Sometimes he thinks he cares so much about his plants because he doesn't have much else to care for. The rest of those who live here, in his building, they must have a lot more to care for. Those plants must seem so small compared to the rest of their worlds.  


“It gives me a bit of hope. This building is kind of shit, yeah? No offense. But out of all of the shit, your balcony... isn't. There is life because you keep your plants alive. I like them.”  
  


(Something tells Zayn that this... this might be the beginning of the end).  


Harry turns around. Zayn watches the way his shoulders almost turn in on themselves. “I can leave- I _will_ leave.”  
  


In a normal world, Zayn would have let him go. But he's clearly found himself in some sort of alternate universe when he steps toward Harry and says, “Wait.”  


Harry turns around. It's not the proximity that shakes Zayn to his very core. It's the feeling he's got crawling up his spine.  
  


Zayn swallows. Shakes it off. “Just... wait here, yeah?”  


After a few moments, he returns with a pillow and a blanket. Harry smiles and Zayn's knees feel weak. He blames it on exhaustion. “I can stay here?”  


“Yeah,” Zayn breathes out. He shakes his head. Disbelief. “Yeah, s'fine.”  


Harry has dimples deeper than Zayn had ever thought imaginable. He ignores that thought.  


Their hands brush when Harry reaches out for the blanket and Zayn steps back. Quickly. Harry bites his lip. Blinks slowly. “Thank you.”  
  


Zayn nods. His hand barely reaches the can on the floor when Harry speaks again. “Wait- what's your name?”  
  


Zayn turns. He waters his Dahlia's. And then he looks at Harry. He's waiting for a response, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, long hair sprawled along the pillow resting on the concrete. Something deep in Zayn's conscious tells him that this is what heaven looks like. When Harry blinks up at him, something deeper tells him that, actually, this is a bit more like hell.  
  


He slides open the door, swallows hard, and glances back once more before sliding the door shut. “It's Zayn.”  


(It's the beginning of the end).  


\- - -  
  


It's not until the following morning, however many hours later, that Zayn realizes it.  
  


Not until he finds a page from his sketchbook (that he must have left out) beneath the vacant pillow on his balcony.  
  


_Zayn,  
  
_

_there is something about your balcony,_

_something about how much life it holds,  
  
_

_and how little your eyes do.  
  
_

_-Harry  
  
_

_\- - -  
_

“M'sorry- _what_?”  
  


Zayn huffs. Rings the cloth around his hands as he glances up at Niall from the opposite side of the bar. “S'not funny.”  
  


“I just don't understand the question,” Niall smirks. “Try again.”  
  


It's the morning after Zayn had met Harry. He's still in awe. Still trying to understand whether he had dreamt it or not. “Do I look... sad?”  
  


Niall snorts. “No. I don't think so.”  
  


“Do I look like...” Zayn pauses, catches the countertop cleaner on the cloth. “Like I'm decaying?”  
  


“Jesus,” Niall laughs. “No, mate, you look proper... alive to me.”  
  


Zayn huffs again. When Niall's attention is brought elsewhere, Zayn pulls the small paper from his pocket. Slips away to the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror for what feels like the hundredth time that morning. He squints his eyes, cocks his head, before leaning closer to his reflection and widening his eyes. He's got a little speck in one, that his mum always used to point out, _it makes you unique_. Everything is perfectly symmetrical, like Niall always says, jawlines even and eyes the same shape. There is no one thing bigger than the other, nothing different on one side from the other. Zayn knows this. He knows that, physically, he doesn't have many flaws. He doesn't think this shallowly, just knows it in a way that he knows that two plus two is four. But he never actually thought about the amount of life behind his eyes. He never thought about it because he never had to.  
  


Not until the boy on his balcony.  
  


Zayn wonders if Harry had met him prior to his move across the ocean, what amount of life would he have seen then, or would he have seen a whole other person.  
  


He shoves the note into his pocket. Shakes his head.  


Life is just a thing.  
  
\- - -  
  


That night, he leaves the blanket and pillow on his balcony.  
  


The following morning, he finds another note.  
  


_thank you_.  
  


\- - -  
  


Zayn doesn't see Harry again until an entire week passes.  
  


Every night, just before crawling into his own bed, Zayn leaves the blanket and pillow. He'll shake it out the following morning, a little paper falling from it, and finds himself holding onto it for the whole day. He's collected six papers. Six.  
  


_1\. Zayn,  
  
_

_there is something about your balcony,_

_something about how much life it holds,  
  
_

_and how little your eyes do.  
  
_

_-Harry  
  
_

_2\. thank you.  
  
_

_3\. I know that your balcony is not my home. I won't stay much longer. I promise.  
  
_

_4\. what is it about promises that make them so easy to break?  
  
_

_5\. it's getting colder now. and your plants are still lovely.  
  
_

_6\. Zayn,_

_thank you for the new pillow._

_I do not know you but I feel like I do.  
  
_

Despite the situation, and his very own personal conflict with the idea of a complete stranger sleeping on his balcony for an entire week straight, something makes Zayn feel a strange comfort when it comes to thoughts of Harry. Which is odd, considering they hadn't a real conversation, and only saw each other that one night (morning) in a blinding darkness and post sleep haze. Maybe it's because all Zayn knows these days is comfort in himself and that alone. He hasn't found comfort, or home, in a single person, or thing, since leaving. Maybe, he thinks, maybe Harry could be good for him.  
  


But he shakes it off. Shakes it off until he convinces himself that there isn't a single thing out there made to be good for him.  
  


Life is just a thing.  


\- - -  
  


But then--- three nights pass. And still, all Zayn has is six papers.  
  


The blanket and pillow appear untouched for those three nights, but still, Zayn leaves them there. He doesn't know this boy. He doesn't _care_ about him. But he finds himself paying closer attention to the morning news in _DRINK!_ the following day. He doesn't know what he expects to see. _Boy with eyes to die for and lips that could kill: found dead_?  
  


He shuts the television off (not before Niall is shouting at him to put on the game).  
  


Ever since Zayn had found himself in Brooklyn, he's fallen into a timely routine of blur. All of his days, his time, it's all blurred together to a point where he's glued with distant comfort. He knows where he is, who he is, and what he's doing; but still finds himself questioning the day, the time, and reality. His mum used to say that because he was an artist, he was a bit more lost than the others.  
  


Zayn wonders if he wasn't an artist-- would he be lost then?  
  


The bar is crawling with men by the time the sun sets and there's a game on the television that Zayn only halfway cares about. He's got a towel hung over his shoulder and a flannel wrapped around his waist when he hears it.  
  


“Excuse me?”  
  


The voice is so painfully familiar that it almost frightens Zayn – seeing as he had spoken to the boy once (even less, it felt). But what really scares Zayn, what has him coiling into himself, is the way his skin awakes the moment the first syllable leaves his lips.  
  


Zayn spins on the heel of his boot, lip tucked between his teeth as his eyes meet a salient emerald, looking back at him like he was, dare he say it, _heaven_.  
  


“Hi, Zayn, hi-” Harry leans over the bar. “S'Harry, if you didn't remember.”  
  


Zayn takes a step toward him, closer to the bar that separated them to a safe distance, and nods. “I remember."  


Harry nods. “Great.” He looks around the bar, at all of the men, loud and unrelenting. His eyes meet Zayn's again. “I don't know how I found you here.”  
  


“Oh,” Zayn nods because that's all he can do.  
  


Harry looks up from beneath his lashes. “But I did.”  
  


“You did.”  
  


There's a strange softness to the moment, despite the rowdy men surrounding them, as they held a quiet conversation between their eyes. Zayn's fingertips, which were curled into tensed fists prior, find themselves loosening they're resting limply by his sides. He feels dumbfounded, a little bit confused, because Harry's lips are a shade of pink that Zayn wants to paint on every empty canvas, on his walls, and _fuck, his skin_.  
  


He swallows. “Do- uh, do you want a drink?"  


Harry nods, blinks, as if everything about the moment is casual. Is real. “What d'you drink?”  
  


Zayn grins. “Mostly everything behind me.”  


“I see,” Harry hums. “Well, surprise me, yeah?”  
  


Zayn tries to ignore the way he shivers when Harry smiles.  
  


He makes him a Long Island Iced Tea – a drink with five liquors and little of anything else. He slides the glass over, with a lemon on its rim, and nods toward it. “I like this.”  


Harry puts his nose to it. Closes his eyes. “Long Island Iced Tea.”  
  


“You know your stuff,” Zayn laughs a little. He finds himself enamored with the way Harry raises the glass to his tauntingly pink lips. When they part, Zayn can almost feel his breath, that's how focused he is, and it has the pit of his stomach tightening. Harry takes a sip, then another, and closes his eyes. His lips are glistening with the liquid and, fuck, Zayn feels himself losing it. He doesn't try to deny his attraction to the boy with long hair.  


“Lots of tequila,” Harry scrunches up his nose. “Yeah?”  
  


“Yeah,” Zayn breaths out.  
  


Harry pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “Nice.”  
  


A strange silence falls over them once more before Zayn leans over. This is the closest they had been yet, with little space between them (included the bar) but Zayn can feel Harry's energy. It's intoxicating – and he hasn't even had a sip. “You didn't sleep on my balcony the last few nights.”  
  


Harry blinks, looks down into his glass, swishes the liquid. He looks up. “I didn't want to overstay my welcome.”  


He says it as a joke. As if they're two old friends. But that's just the thing. They aren't.  
  


“Are you okay?”  
  


Harry seems stunned by the question. His lips part but no words leave them. Zayn feels Harry's hesitance before a small smile pulls his lips. “Is anybody?”  


“Suppose not,” Zayn pushes off of the bar. “Another drink?”  


They hold each other's eyes longer than necessary.  


Zayn doesn't know why.  
  


\- - -  
  


Later on, when early evening blurs into 2AM, Zayn finds himself walking beside Harry. They're down a lonely Brooklyn street surrounded by brick walls holding secrets of lips that were there earlier in the day. There's an undeniable chill to the air, his flannel doing little to keep Zayn warm, but Harry, in nothing other than a Henley, seems to be basking in the air. With rosy cheeks and a nose to match, glistening lips so pink that Zayn reckons looking at them long enough will send him into cardiac arrest, Harry radiates so much life that it almost scares Zayn. Almost.  
  


They are neither drunk nor sober, there but not, shoulders brushing with every step they take and quick glances that turn into grins when they catch each other. It's all so unfamiliar to Zayn, but feels the closest thing to familiar that he has ever felt before. And he doesn't understand that. _Can't_ understand that.  
  


They shared conversation as a friend would a drink. Very casual, simplistic ways of speaking. Where they were born and what they're doing here. They picked at few similarities and piled up their differences – but Zayn still felt that pull at his skin with every breath Harry took. He doesn't really know how they had ended up walking out of the bar, but he doesn't complain. He doesn't complain because he never knew that a brush of a shoulder could be capable of waking up a part of him that he hasn't felt in ages. He can't put a name to it.  
  


“I've got a question. And I think that I sort of deserve the answer.”  
  


Harry glances over to Zayn. A soft hint of a smile plays his lips. “Ask.”  
  


“That night, the other night, when I found you on my balcony,” Zayn looks down at his feet. Steady. “You gave me a mess of words when I asked what you were doing there. I guess I want to know what happened. And where you were before then. And- and where you were the three nights you didn't come up.”  


“That's three questions,” Harry grins, side-eyeing Zayn. Zayn knits his eyebrows, and Harry laughs. “Okay, okay,”  
  


A soft wind hits Zayn when Harry takes an even softer breath. Everything about the moment is soft. The sky is dark and there is very little streetlight but Zayn sees him.  
  


“I found myself falling into somebody too fast,” He says it so softly that Zayn almost misses it. Almost. “You know, when they give you all the signs that, _yes, this is what I want,_ until they do that one thing that goes, _well, actually, about that..."  
_

Zayn pulls his lips in. Blinks softly when their eyes meet just so Harry knows that he's there to listen. To hear. “I don't really have a home, a story for another time, but yeah. One moment we're meeting and the next I'm moving in. I thought it was what we wanted. But people do what's in their nature, don't they?”  
  


“Yeah,” Zayn practically whispers. “Yeah.”  
  


“The thing is, I lived with my sister downtown. I work for her, in her gallery, and it was all good until _she_ fell in love. I had to leave. Her boyfriend was moving in and her apartment wasn't made for three. So I left because it was meant to be. She was falling in love, I was... falling... and I wasn't being left alone. Or I thought so, at least.”  


Zayn notices the way Harry loses himself in thought. His lips move faster than his mind, Zayn thinks.  


“Long story short: he didn't want me there. Not anymore. Not at all.” He shrugs. Like it doesn't bother him. Like he doesn't care. “He wrecked a lot of my stuff, some of my favorite books destroyed, my own pieces torn apart.”  


Zayn feels something in him shake. Something like his heart. “Are you an artist?”  


Harry shakes his head. “I write. My sister is an artist. An early, retired one, at least. She figured that she would make more money owning a gallery than selling her work. It's a tough world to be a part of.”  


“Yeah,”  


“You're an artist,” Harry points out. Like he knows.  
  


Zayn shrugs. “Barely.”  


“I don't know,” Harry hums. “I reckoned you were one from the moment I saw you, but the paint on the blanket gave it away.”  
  


“What made you think I'm an artist?”  


Another soft breath. A moment of careful silence. “You are really beautiful. With waves of inspiration somewhere behind your eyes.”  


Zayn tries not to react. “I've got another question.”  
  


“That doesn't seem fair,” Harry shakes his head. “If you get another question, I've got to ask you one."  


“Fine. Me, first.”  
  


“Fine.”  


Zayn sighs. “That first night, you left me a note-”  


“I left you a note every night-”  
  


“I know,” Zayn interrupts. “I know but that first night.”  


Harry hums.  
  


“You wrote something that... stuck with me.” Zayn stops walking. Harry notices and steps a little closer. “About my balcony and my eyes.”  


“A vast comparison.”  


Zayn only now realizes that they're surrounded by fallen leaves. Only now realizes that it's 2AM and he's stood against a brick wall with a boy he doesn't really know. Only now realizes that Harry has a smile that could bring together or tear apart.  


“I just didn't understand,” Zayn concludes. “I can't understand.”  


Harry nods. “I know. I'm going to ask you my question, okay? And I think that it may serve as an answer, too, yeah?"  


Zayn nods. That's all he can do when he's got Harry looking at him like that.  


“Have you ever loved something? Someone? And I mean, like, really loved. Like, feel it all over, all of the time, type of love.”  


Zayn thinks of his sisters, of his dad, and then looks at Harry. “Maybe.”  


“That's why.”  


Zayn's eyebrows knit together. “What?”  


“You don't believe in much, do you?”  


“I don't know what you mean,” Zayn murmurs.  


“I mean,” Harry's back is against the brick wall, but his head is turned toward Zayn and it's almost too much. “In life. Love. Fate.”  


Zayn shudders. “I don't.”  


“I know,” Harry nods but this time there is no trace of a smile. No hint of a playful response. He almost reeks of solemnity. “But that life on your balcony, however little it is, was enough to bring me there.”  


“Maybe,” Zayn swallows. The moment is too much for his unsteady hands to hold.  


Zayn feels Harry's fingertips knocking gently against his. In a way that says _I'm here_ without it becoming overbearing. It was a touch.  


Zayn watches Harry's lips as he speaks his next thought. Loses himself in it.  


“I think that you and I might be very good for each other.”  


Harry's eyes are closed, now, his head resting against the brick wall and Zayn feels himself shiver. His fingers are cold, against Zayn's, but they're there. And this moment is real. And Zayn doesn't remember where he woke up this morning or what he had for dinner last night but he knows where he is this moment.  


For the first time since arriving to Brooklyn, Zayn feels something.  


Something that he cannot, for the life of him, name.  


\- - -  


_II. HAVING_

 

His name is Michael. The boy that ruined Harry's things. Harry tells Zayn this the following day, early afternoon, sat in a park. The air is cold, and there are leaves all around them, and the world is a little more alive than it was last night.  


There are people out and about, a normal Saturday in Brooklyn, and Zayn feels a little more alive, too. Something about the way Harry looked at him when they met on the bench.  


“I met him at a bar,” Harry nods, then laughs bitterly. “Typical, right?”  


Zayn nods. “Usually.”  


“We got drunk. Real off ourselves. And then we fucked in his apartment.” Harry bites his lip as if he's remembering it. Zayn wonders what it was like; if it was good.  


“I think that when something starts like that,” He continues. “When something begins in a toxic way... it ends in disaster. It will always end in disaster.”  


Zayn nods. “Maybe.”  


Harry hums and it's such a pretty sound. Such a pretty sound from such pretty lips. “And what about two people meeting on a balcony? How d'you think that'll end?”  


Zayn smiles. Smiles because he simply has to. Smiles because he recognizes that this isn't a new chapter but instead a new book. A green-eyed, pink lipped novel. His fingers ache to turn the pages.

 

\- - -  


“S'weird being inside here...”  


Zayn looks behind him, where Harry is stood at his doorway, and laughs. “Why? 'Cause you've only been familiar with my balcony?”  


“Yeah,” Harry breathes out a laugh. His eyes are taking in the apartment as if his life depends on it.  


Zayn looks at Harry. Tall, slim – yet toned – frame, ink on his skin, hair that nearly touches his shoulders, lips that remind him of newly blossomed roses, a darkness beneath his eyes that is a clear indicator that he hasn't slept much. “Harry?”  


Harry hums, sliding his fingertips down a blank canvas. Zayn watches him. “Where have you slept since then?”  


Harry's fingertips halt, nimble joints curling into a fist when he turns around. He shrugs. “Places.”  


Zayn shakes his head. “Why don't you find an apartment? You've got a job, in that gallery, why don't you look for a place to go?”  


Harry shrugs again. “I'm not good at finding home.”  


“Are you speaking literally or figuratively?”  


His eyes scream solemnity. “Both, I suppose.”  


Zayn is wary of the way Harry is still soaking it all in, cautious eyes darting from wall to wall, looking for something that Zayn hasn't any idea what. “What is it?”  


Harry glances back at him. His eyes are tender now and it scares Zayn. “I guess I'm looking for something.”  


“Like what?”  


“Like...” Harry licks his lips into his mouth. Looks around again. “A family photo? Something that'll bring me into your personal life?”  


Zayn breathes out an uncertain laugh. “Won't find that here.”  
  


“I guess I'm trying to find myself in your world.”  


Zayn looks around, shrugs his shoulders as he motions to the small surroundings. “You're here.”  


Harry parts his lips. Blinks so softly that it almost melts Zayn into a puddle. “I'm here.”  


\- - -  


“So, who is it?”  


Zayn glances up from the bar, meets blue curious eyes, and knits his brows. “What?”  


Niall squints his eyes. “You've met somebody. You must have.”  


Zayn hums. “Have I?”  


“You tell me,” Niall knocked his empty glass against the bar. “A nice lady? A good bloke? Fill me in.”  


Zayn thinks about the last few weeks spent with Harry. The last few weeks discovering something that he hadn't ever before. Everything is black and white except for the moments that he finds himself beside Harry. It's unexplainable, it's scary, but over everything else, it's happening.  


He smiles. “A hurricane.”  


Niall's eyebrows pull together. “A hurricane?”  


Zayn throws a towel over his shoulder, smiles again, “That's all I've got for you, mate. Stop distracting me, I'm trying to work.”  


\- - -  


“Favorite color?”  


“Green.”  


“Because of your eyes?”  


“Because it's nice. What's yours?”  


“Red, maybe. Sometimes blue. But-- an aquatic blue. Or a lilac.”  


Harry snorts. “ _Artists_.”  


\- - -  


Zayn invites Harry to stay the night.  


He hasn't a place to go – Zayn asks to be nice.  


That's why.  


\- - -  


“The least that you can do is _ask_ for the last slice.”  


Harry grins. “You had forty slices already.”  
  


“Untrue,” Zayn scoffs. “I paid.”  


“Well,” Harry splits the pizza down the middle and slides his thumb over Zayn's cheekbone right after. “I suppose I'll share.”  


\- - -  


Zayn's Dahlia's are still alive.  


Even as the days grow shorter.  
  


Even as Zayn finds himself falling into something dangerous.  
  


\- - -  


Harry looks like some sort of model a few feet ahead of Zayn.  


His hair is blowing in the cold air and his body moves in ways that remind Zayn of a quiet ocean. Soft, gentle, but always dangerous. On his feet are rollerblades, a matte black with a dark purple painted band, and Zayn imagines him working as a waiter where all of the staff have to wear them. A job requirement. He doesn't even think about how much he would tip him even if he simply just set water on the table.  


“You're going so slow,” Harry pouts as he spins around. “Come to me.”  


Zayn huffs. “I don't skate.”  


“Rollerblade.”  


Zayn rolls his eyes. “I don't _rollerblade_. I don't do any of this. We're surrounded by people. I'm gonna fall.”  


Harry laughs, dimples so deep that Zayn thinks he can fall into them, and rollerblades back over to him. “C'mon,” He reaches out for Zayn's hand and Zayn only hesitates for a second before lacing their fingers. “I'll keep you safe.”  


Later, they fall into a pile of leaves. They laugh so hard that they cry.  


\- - -  


The sky had darkened to an almost black-blue by the time Zayn finds Harry. He's sitting outside of _DRINK!_ with a beanie pulled over his head and Zayn smiles. “Hey, finally out of there.”  


Harry jumps up from his spot, smiles only halfway, and steps toward Zayn. “I figured it out, I think.”  


Zayn squints his eyes a little. “What?”  


“These last few weeks I've been trying to put the pieces together, trying to figure it out,” He nods like he's making any sense. “You're a masterpiece but you're practically teared apart. Spilt ink. I wanted to figure out why.”  


Zayn hesitates. “And...?”  


“And...” Harry knits his eyebrows. “You must have lost something. You must have. You talk of your sisters, of your dad, but never your mum. Is it her?”  


Zayn, emotionally, takes a step back. Tries to steady his breathing. “She's alive.”  


“Good,” Harry murmurs. “Something in me just... needs to know.”  


“Why?”  


“Because behind your eyes is potential to feel something real.”  


A wind passes, hits Zayn like a ton of bricks, and he feels a heaviness on his chest, like a brick decided to stay and find a home on his skin. They have only known each other for sometime under a month and Zayn feels as if he's known him for an eternity. And it scares Zayn because Zayn knows that something isn't right. That, just a month ago, he was so certain that none of this existed. That feeling like another being held purpose was illusory.  


Zayn had watched these feelings dismantle in front of his eyes before he left home. Zayn had experienced, firsthand, what it was to have and lose and it all seemed painfully inauthentic to him.  


“God,” Harry breathes out, taking a step toward Zayn. “You're looking at me like... I don't know.”  


Zayn finds himself pulled into Harry. A magnetism that couldn't really exist.  


Outside of _DRINK!,_ with quiet brick walls breathing in their secrets, Zayn presses his lips to Harry's. And it's slow, so slow, and very tentative. Everything about the moment is careful. Their lips are just barely touching and Zayn swears that this is what it feels like to lose yourself and have not a single clue on how to get back.  


\- - -  


It's about 4 AM, a week later, when Zayn jumps from his sleep.  


Much like that very first night that he met Harry on his balcony, Zayn finds himself clutching at his chest as he struggles to find his can. It's becoming more common, now, forgetting to water his Dahlia's. He had been so distracted by discovering that he's been forgetting what matters to him. Because he needs to keep them alive.  


Harry, sprawled out in all of his glory, starts to wake. His eyes meet a frantic Zayn and they're immediately tender. “Dahlia's?”  


“Yeah,” The word barely leaves Zayn's lips. “Can't forget.”  


Harry follows Zayn out onto the balcony. Another cold night (morning) bringing them closer to mid November and it makes Zayn wonder where all of this time went. Outside, his Dahlia's are faltering. They're looking a little less alive.  


“Fuck,” Zayn cusses. Slams the can down. “Fuck.”  


Harry steps toward him. Hand on his shoulder. “S'okay.”  


“No,” Zayn is quick to respond and every word that leaves his lips is sharp. “I should be paying better attention. I should be caring better.”  


Harry steps back. A careful space between them. Zayn pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “Sorry, uh... m'sorry. I know what you're thinking. _They're just plants._ I know.”  


Harry shakes his head so easily. “Nope. They matter to you. If it matters to you, it's real.”  


Zayn feels something in his chest and it reminds him of hands clawing their way through a cage. But he finds himself pushing Harry into the balcony door until there is nothing but skin on skin. He kisses him like his life depends on it and in that moment, it does. Because Harry's mouth is a home he didn't even know existed and he wants to stay there. 

When Harry slides his hands up the back of Zayn's shirt, chills erupt on every inch of his taut skin, and everything about the moment is too intimate. Zayn leads Harry back into his small apartment, knocking things over as their lips meet and part only to meet again. For somebody who had just been asleep, Harry is more alive than Zayn would have ever thought possible. His touch is fire and Zayn is up in flames.  
  


“ _The expense of spirit in a waste of shame, is lust in action,_ ” Harry starts reciting, breathlessly, as Zayn's lips trail down his neck. “ _And till action, lust is perjured murderous, bloody, full of blame..._ ”  
  


His voice is deep, throaty, and it has Zayn shivering. Their tongues meet, become acquainted, and Harry pulls away. Their forehead rest against one another and he blinks slowly. Zayn knits his eyebrows. Harry bites his bottom lip. “Sonnet 129.”  
  


Zayn lunges at him again, this time pulling his shirt over his head in the process, and much like everything else in his life, it's a blur. Falling into Zayn's makeshift bed, with hands that are unrelenting, the two find a place within one another. Harry's hand snakes between Zayn's thighs, slow but sure, and a breathy moan flees Zayn's lips. Harry captures it with his tongue.  
  


Harry ends up above Zayn, green eyes darkened to a dangerous emerald that says a lot without saying anything at all, and his lips find a place on every inch of his skin. First his neck, where he hums against it, before trailing down to his collarbones.  


“ _Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear_ ,” Harry breathes the words against Zayn's chest, a mess of lips and tongue and teeth, “ _too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice_ ,” Zayn's skin swallows Harry's words in way he doesn't deem possible. He feels out of control of his body when Harry inches his way down.  


Harry takes him down his throat as if he was created for this. Zayn throws his head back against the white sheets, eyes clenched, lips parted. “Fuck....”  


Harry has a tight grip on Zayn's thighs, fingertips pressing against the skin in a way that will leave bruises. Zayn knows that it will be art when he sees it once they're done.  
  


“ _But for those who love... time is eternity..._ ”  
  


Zayn shakes, his entire body relenting against him, and Harry swallows him in a way that has his head spinning. He feels his chest tighten and expand. Caged. Harry crawls up and presses his lips hard against Zayn's. He pulls away, Zayn's bottom lip between his teeth shortly, and shivers with a soft breath. “Henry Van Dyke.”  


Zayn breaths out a laugh. Closes his eyes. Harry's lips kiss each lid, his nose, before one more soft peck and then he's asleep.  


When Zayn wakes the following morning, Harry's no longer there but in place of where his body had been a few hours prior is a piece of paper. A note.  


_I didn't know home_

_until I met your hands.  
_

\- - -  


“My dad.”  
  


Harry looks up from where he's sat on the floor. Around him is a fading cloud of smoke, from lips that he kissed just an hour ago, and he blinks slowly. Zayn is looking at him like he is a masterpiece because he is. “Your dad?”  


“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs, bringing his attention back to the joint between his fingertips. “The one I lost. The one who died.”  


Harry sits up, eyes low, but curious. And there. “I'm so sorry. It must hurt.”  


Zayn takes a moment to blink slowly, to shrug his shoulders in an indifferent stupor. “It happens, doesn't it? It's life.”  


Harry shakes his head. “It's life, yeah, but that doesn't mean it can't hurt. What happened to him?”  


“Pneumonia,” Zayn practically mumbles. “It happened quick like it does in movies.”  
  


“I'm sorry,” Harry says again. His eyes are soft and emerald and low. And it makes Zayn shiver.  


Zayn shrugs again and stands up on unsteady feet. “S'alright. M'gonna water my plant quick-”  


“But your mum,” Harry interrupts. “You never speak of her. You never mention her.”  
  


Zayn collects the can, fills it with water. He doesn't respond. He feels Harry by him. “Why? What happened with her? Something had to have happened.”  


Curling his fingertips around the can's handle, Zayn slides open the balcony door with his spare hand. Harry doesn't follow.  


Life is just a thing.  


\- - -

 

“So _you're_ the guy stealin' Zayn from me, yeah?”  


Harry smiles. It's almost too endearing. “Maybe.”  


Niall laughs. “S'nice to meet you, mate, been couple of months since Zayn's turned into this alternate universe Zayn.”  
  


“Yeah,” Harry laughs. “You, too. Zayn talks about you sometimes.”  


Zayn glances up, from a few feet away, at the sound of his name. Harry smiles at him and he feels a jolt against his chest. He fills a glass with beer, to the rim, and slides it to the older man on the opposite side of the bar. He smiles.  


“Zayn's mentioned you once,” Niall nods toward him. “Something about a hurricane.”  


Harry meets Zayn's eyes. He bites his bottom lip out of habit. The room grows hot.  
  


\- - -  


It's a couple of days later that they find themselves up against the wall of the men's room of _DRINK!  
_

“A hurricane?” Harry moans when Zayn drops to his knees. “Me?”  
  


“Mm,” Zayn hums, squeezing the flesh of Harry's thighs against his fingers. “Maybe.”  


\- - -  


“How much longer?”  


Zayn pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, cocks his head, and glances up at Harry. “Few minutes.”  


“Okay,” Harry breathes out. He's lying on his back, hands folded across his bare chest, on Zayn's makeshift bed. A few feet away, Zayn's sat behind a canvas, shirtless, with paint on his skin. Everything about the moment is real. Outside, the days and nights are blurring together. Days spent with hands to hold and skin to touch and lips to explore. Nights talking about the universe and each other. Zayn is losing sense of time. He's losing sense of himself.  


Silence overruns the next few minutes, but Zayn can hear Harry's soft breaths, and it makes his skin burn. He swallows. “M'done.”  


Harry jumps up, nearly tiptoes to Zayn, and smiles. “My eyes.”  


Zayn's bottom lip finds a home between his teeth. He glances up at Harry. “Your eyes.”  
  


“You're talented.”  


For the first time in a long time, Zayn doesn't falter. “You're beautiful.”  


Kissing Harry is like falling with no support. He tastes like certainty and it's scary.  


“Want you to touch me,” Harry nearly mewls, eyes fluttering shut as Zayn kisses down his neck. “God, want you to touch me, always,”  


Zayn sucks hard on Harry's collarbone, dragging his teeth down when Harry lets out a breathy sigh. Everything falls together, apart, after that. They're losing clothes and, simultaneously, losing themselves.  


“You feel like music, you feel like art,” Harry breathes into Zayn's mouth when he's found his way on top of him. His fingers are holding onto Zayn's waist so tight that they're nearly digging into his skin. But Zayn doesn't recognize the pain. He doesn't recognize anything aside from Harry's next, and final, words before he falls apart. “I'm falling in love with you.”  


\- - -

 _III. LOSING  
_

It's quiet.  
  


It's quiet, and it's cold, and it's dark.  
  


Zayn is leaning over his balcony, the sleeves of his sweater so long that they're touching his fingertips, and his entire body is trembling. Whether it's from the cold or not is beyond him – but there's a small voice telling him he knows exactly why his body is reacting the way that it is. It had only been a few hours post Harry's scary, breathless admittance. They both fell apart, nearly crying out each other's names, before Zayn disappeared onto his balcony with a can full of water. He isn't sure the Dahlia's will make it past this week.  
  


It isn't long before Harry decides to join him. Even if he hadn't heard the balcony door sliding open, Zayn would have known Harry was there because his energy is strong. There are times that he finds himself lost in thoughts about the way it feels to touch Harry's skin and his phone will vibrate with a _I can't stop thinking about your hands_ text. Their existences are in sync, have become so strongly attached in such a short time, and they share an energy that's unexplainable. It's scary to Zayn. It's so fucking scary.  


“I am.”  
  


Zayn glances at Harry, now stood beside him, resting his elbows on the railing with very careful eyes. He shakes his head. “It doesn't exist.”  


Harry's eyebrows pull together, like it's the most shocking thing that he's ever heard out loud, and whispers, “It does. I am.”  


“It doesn't exist,” Zayn repeats, a little louder. Below them, eighteen floors down, a couple walks by with their fingers locked. They're laughing, and it sounds far away, but Zayn feels it in his chest. “It's not real.”  


“It is,” Harry counters. “We are.”  


Zayn shakes his head, pushes himself away from the railing, and lets out a breath that has Harry's attention immediately. “This fucking plant.”  


Harry's eyes dart from Zayn to the Dahlia and they're soft, but sad, almost. “What is it about this plant, Zayn? What is it about life?”  
  


Zayn feels his fingertips numbing, his chest expanding and contracting and everything falling apart. “I wrecked her garden.”  


Harry takes a step closer. “Zayn...”  


“I wrecked her garden,” His voice shakes. “The entire thing. Because she watched him die. She watched him die and then, not even a year later, gave herself to another man.”  


Harry's eyes light up with realization. He doesn't falter as he steps closer and captures Zayn's face into his hands. “S'okay, Zayn. It is.”  


“No,” He murmurs. His eyes are stuck on Harry's lips. “It isn't real.”  


Harry's fingertips are soft against his cheeks and Zayn can't move, even when Harry's thumb moves down his lips. The moment, the touch, is so intimate. It has Zayn's stomach in knots.  


“We exist. Here. Together. We do.”  


Zayn remembers the day very clearly, but in pieces. It wasn't long after his father died, just under a year, when he found his mum wrapped up with the man next door. It was early summer, but the day was warm, and Zayn remembers the sun and where it was over his flat when he pushed the door to his parents-- no, his mum's-- bedroom open. There is a space between that moment and the moment that he's pulling his hand away, a throbbing fist.  


The man was holding his nose, with little blood seeping through his fingers, his hands that were touching Zayn's mum as if he _deserved_ to. Zayn remembers his mum calling after him, angry, terrified, but all Zayn could do was rush out of the house and straight to her garden. He felt wild, out of himself, when he started tearing flowers from the ground. Ripping them apart. Kicking and knocking and clawing at the growth. All he can remember hearing is his mum crying and his sisters yelling for him to stop. When he blinks, he's in Brooklyn.  


Everything is blurred. Everything is always blurred.  


But with Harry-- there is clarity. A sense of knowing, of being, of existing. It is so fucking scary.  


He shakes his head. “This isn't real. You don't--”  


“It is. I am.” The way that Harry is speaking is making Zayn's head throb. He's so certain in his words. He's so sure.  


“I can't do this,” Zayn pulls away, stumbles over himself, escapes into his apartment.  


Life is just a thing.  
  


Harry follows him inside. Unrelenting. He reaches for Zayn. “Tell me what you feel, then. Tell me you don't feel a single thing.”  
  


Zayn steps back. Eyes hard.  


“ _Tell_ me,” Harry emphasizes. “Come on, then. Tell me.”  


“I can't understand the way that you make me feel.”  
  


Harry takes a shaky breath. “It has to be real.”  


“Real?” Zayn laughs bitterly. “Real like kicking somebody out of your apartment? Real like wrecking all of their stuff?”  


Now Harry steps back. An emotional dagger straight through his chest. His heart is bleeding off of his sleeve. “A low blow.”  


“It's true, though,” Zayn shoots back. “Isn't it? You _love_ him. Michael. We wouldn't even know of each other's existence if he hadn't forced you from his life. You wouldn't have climbed eighteen fucking floors to my balcony.”  


Harry shakes his head. “You're wrong. I feel so sorry for you.”  
  


“If love exists, then you love too easily,”  


Harry blinks. Slow. Soft. Defeated. “And you don't at all. I get it.”  
  


Before he leaves, Harry touches Zayn's lips just once more. “ _Who ever loved that loved not at first sight_?”  


Zayn stays still, shivers, watches Harry reach his door with most of his belongings over his shoulder. “Shakespeare,” He murmurs, shakes his head, and leaves.  


Life is just a thing.  


\- - -  


“I remember a couple of months ago, you asked me if you looked sad. Something about... decaying...”  


Zayn glances up at Niall on the opposite side of the bar. It hasn't been many days, but it feels like an eternity, and everything is slow. He sprays the countertop and wipes it down. “Yeah...”  


“I'm seein' it, a bit,” Niall leans over with a poignant hue behind the blue of his eyes. “What happened? S'Harry, yeah? What happened with him?”  


He shakes his head. Doesn't tell him that he feels an emptiness in his chest that he never deemed possible. Doesn't tell him that he's left a pillow and blanket on his balcony every night since.  


He shakes his head and doesn't tell him a single thing.  


\- - -  


When he wakes up the following morning, he finds a note beneath the pillow. He trembles as he opens it.  


_You say that love is nonsense - I tell you it is no such thing. For weeks and months it is a steady physical pain, an ache about the heart, never leaving one, by night or by day; a long strain on one's nerves like toothache or rheumatism, not intolerable at any one instant, but exhausting by its steady drain on the strength...  
_

\- - -  


**Zayn (3:41AM): I need you here  
**

\- - -  


“You were created to be loved.”  


Zayn listens. He listens but he doesn't respond. He can never respond.  


“Every inch of you,” the words hit his skin in soft intervals, “was created to be loved.”  


Zayn hears him. _Feels_ him.  


His tongue meets Zayn's neck. He shivers against it. “But you'll never let me, will you?”  


His lips move against Zayn's skin and he can't find it in him to breathe.  


“You'll never let me love you.”  


Before Harry slides out of Zayn's makeshift bed, Zayn wraps his fingers around his wrist. “Who said it? The note... who said it?”  
  


“Henry Brook Adams,” Harry's eyes have never been so soft. “Sleep well, Zayn.”  


\- - -  


Zayn finds himself falling apart.  


It takes him thirteen days to realize why.  


\- - -  


They meet on a Wednesday early evening. The sun is setting, nearly gone for the night, and the air is brisk. There are leaves all over the ground, and Brooklyn's Christmas has already been brought to life, even with some time until then. Zayn watches a family decorate the outside of their apartment building with red and green lights as he waits for Harry to show up.  


They find each other somewhere near _DRINK!_ with tentative greetings. Zayn's heart is pounding against his chest.  


“Zayn...”  


“Wait,” Zayn breathes out. He takes a small step closer to him. “ _One half of me is yours, the other half yours, mine own, I would say... but if mine, then yours, and so all yours._ ”  


Harry's lips pull up, a smile that makes Zayn feel like he can cry, and he shakes his head. “Shakespeare,” He breathes out a laugh. “Zayn-”  


“Please don't let me go,” Zayn interrupts hastily. “I don't know much but I know that we exist. And I want you on my balcony. I want you in my apartment. I want you. Please don't let me go.”  


Harry pulls him in quickly. So quickly that Zayn doesn't even have time to notice it until their lips are touching. “It's real,” Harry breathes into Zayn's mouth. “We're real.”  


_  
IV. KNOWING_

It's the first snowfall of the season.  
  


Technically, it isn't even snow-season yet, but it came bit early, in very light flurries, and he looks so pretty standing there, right on his balcony, like that first night.  
  


His Dahlia's are nearly gone and it doesn't hurt. Not when he's got green eyes looking at him like he's home.  
  


Zayn licks his lips into his mouth in attempt to withhold a smile. “What are you doing up here?”  
  


“I could tell you the real story,” Harry grins and his dimples are so deep it makes Zayn weak. “Or I can tell you a bedtime story. A boy, in love, so in love, that it makes everything feel a little lighter.”  
  


Zayn steps closer, wraps his arms around Harry, and breathes a laugh into his neck. “That _is_ the real story.”  


_END  
_


End file.
